A severely malnourished six-year-old girl suffered an \u201catrocity\u201d of neglect before her lifeless, lice-ridden body, weighing just 18kg, was rushed to hospital, a court tasked with sentencing her mother has heard.<\/p>\n
Crystal Leanne Hanley, 49, faced the South Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to criminal neglect causing death over the death of her six-year-old daughter, Charlie Nowland, in July 2022.<\/p>\n
The mother-of-five also pleaded guilty to separate counts of criminal neglect relating to two other children.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hanley, of Munno Para in Adelaide\u2019s north, rocked and sobbed silently in the dock as victim impact statements from two of her children and two first responders were read to the court.<\/p>\n Charlie, who had never been taken to a doctor in her life and had never attended school or child care, was taken to the Lyell McEwin Hospital on July 15, 2022 after she stopped breathing.<\/p>\n Prosecutor Kos Lesses said Charlie died from cardiac failure associated with anaemia and severe iron deficiency.<\/p>\n \u201cIn simple terms, she was so severely malnourished to the point where her body essentially collapsed and her heart gave way,\u201d he told Justice Sandi McDonald.<\/p>\n Hanley\u2019s home was in a deplorable and disgusting state, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cTo merely state that it was in a state of squalor is to understate how bad it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Hanley had repeatedly lied and obfuscated to people about getting medical attention for Charlie and told her former partner in a call: \u201cI\u2019m going to jail, I failed her, I failed everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n Chris Kummerow, for Hanley, said she had become a heavy methamphetamine user and suffered untreated PTSD after she was assaulted and repeatedly stabbed by her former partner, John Nowland, in January 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone in this courtroom is asking how a mother could treat her child like this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMs Hanley does love and always did love her children, she was simply emotionally, mentally and cognitively incapable of providing them with the care that they needed.\u201d<\/p>\n He rejected the prosecution\u2019s assertion that Hanley had shown \u201ccallous disregard\u201d for her daughter.<\/p>\n This prompted Justice McDonald to note witnesses had said Charlie could not walk, and had swollen legs \u201cand your client\u2019s joking that \u2018she\u2019s got cankles … she\u2019s a dickhead and she won\u2019t walk\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Sergeant Haydn Evans said he could still vividly see Charlie\u2019s lifeless body on the hospital bed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened to Charlie was an atrocity, one that should never have been allowed to occur,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a society, we must do more to ensure that horrors like this never happen again – no child should ever endure the suffering that was inflicted on Charlie or on her surviving siblings.\u201d<\/p>\n Her death had \u201cprofoundly affected every part of my life\u201d, said the officer who suffered PTSD, anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares and hyper vigilance.<\/p>\n Former nurse Angela Dente, who left the profession as a direct result of what she saw that night, said she was involved in attempting CPR.<\/p>\n \u201cI kept looking at her little sweet face. Her eyes were open but vacant,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Charlie had \u201ca head full of lice eggs\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking closer, I could see significantly large ones pilfering through her scabby bald patches, still looking for a feed,\u201d Ms Dente said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hardest part was putting her little body in the plastic bag for the morgue, gently picking her up, making sure that we wouldn\u2019t hurt her head \u2026 we felt the need to protect her.\u201d<\/p>\n Justice McDonald is yet to decide if further submissions are required before she imposes a sentence.<\/p>\n Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (for people aged 5 to 25)<\/strong><\/p>\n 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A severely malnourished six-year-old girl suffered an \u201catrocity\u201d of neglect before her lifeless, lice-ridden body, weighing just 18kg,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":355434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50,6743],"class_list":{"0":"post-355433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-south-australia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115492486543604511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}